If you had to do it over again, where would you go? I am a little surprised to read this, particularly because one can sense the nostalgia when you post about your Oxford years....

Maybe some hotshot law school--something where I could make some money, anyway.

As it was, I found myself at age 31 superbly educated and all but unemployable thanks to the oversaturation of the academic job market courtesy of the exuberant overproduction of Ph.D.s by the graduate faculties in liberal arts. I still feel pretty bitter about it to this day. Yes, I enjoyed my two years at Oxford. Nonetheless, it's scant consolation to have been a Greats man and to be able to read Sophocles and Tacitus in the original when keeping your car operational and insured is a real financial hassle. Things aren't quite so bad for me these days, but I had some very lean and bitter years after being cast out of the groves of academe.

At one time, a familiarity with the classics was the mark of every educated gentleman, but there are very few people that I know today with whom I can discuss such matters with any degree of comprehension on their part. In all, I regard my education as pretty much a total waste!

Academia: suffer through an insufferable post-doctoral post for 60+ hours a week for 2-5years in a field foreign to you that you don't particularly want to be in ... working for peanuts (~$38k/year). Then maybe do another postdoc, maybe get an assistant professorship, maybe get a tenure track position, maybe get full professorship two decades after having graduating? No sir, not for me. I mean I like science and have the utmost respect for academics because of the conviction that it requires, but it ain't my bag.

Biotech/pharma industry: Seems like a good gig, adequate money for running someone else's research (most people in science are averse to the thought of not having the scientific freedom to pursue your own whims). The catch is that positions are hard to find for people who haven't done a postdoc. Having worked in industry for 2 years prior to grad school, I thought it was what I wanted to do. But 5 years of grad school will beat you into apathy.

I just figured working away from bench-level science for a bit of time would be a breath of fresh air. Management consulting, particularly in biotech/healthcare practices, would still provide any sort of science fix that may be lingering (but the thought of a generalist case of figuring out how to sell more spam at walmart intrigues me). If I realize that jumping into the water and swimming with sharks ain't for me, hey, at least I've still got that ph.d to fall back on to try to shimmy my way back into a hard science position.

Academia: suffer through an insufferable post-doctoral post for 60+ hours a week for 2-5years in a field foreign to you that you don't particularly want to be in ... working for peanuts (~$38k/year). Then maybe do another postdoc, maybe get an assistant professorship, maybe get a tenure track position, maybe get full professorship two decades after having graduating? No sir, not for me. I mean I like science and have the utmost respect for academics because of the conviction that it requires, but it ain't my bag.

Biotech/pharma industry: Seems like a good gig, adequate money for running someone else's research (most people in science are averse to the thought of not having the scientific freedom to pursue your own whims). The catch is that positions are hard to find for people who haven't done a postdoc. Having worked in industry for 2 years prior to grad school, I thought it was what I wanted to do. But 5 years of grad school will beat you into apathy.

I just figured working away from bench-level science for a bit of time would be a breath of fresh air. Management consulting, particularly in biotech/healthcare practices, would still provide any sort of science fix that may be lingering (but the thought of a generalist case of figuring out how to sell more spam at walmart intrigues me). If I realize that jumping into the water and swimming with sharks ain't for me, hey, at least I've still got that ph.d to fall back on to try to shimmy my way back into a hard science position.

Valid points considering the science track, that said, you're not likely going to get a lot of bang for your buck in management consulting for your prior degree work. When I was at McKinsey, there were a small subset of science people that were hired without MBAs as associates, but they were very few and very far between. If you've lined something up, then it's a different story, that said, if you're looking for an improvement in lifestyle, I'm not sure you're going to find it as a relatively junior person at any management consulting firm.

I thought princeton only had three majors for the sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics. Did they break down bio into molecular and non-molecular?

This is coming from someone who avoided the sciences and engineering departments as much as humanly possible, but I know for sure Princeton has a molecular biology department and an ecology and evolutionary biology department. They also have geosciences and astrophysics departments that exist outside of the engineering departments. I'll let someone who knows more than I do go into details, but Princeton definitely has more than three non-engineering majors that would fall into the science category.

This is coming from someone who avoided the sciences and engineering departments as much as humanly possible, but I know for sure Princeton has a molecular biology department and an ecology and evolutionary biology department. They also have geosciences and astrophysics departments that exist outside of the engineering departments. I'll let someone who knows more than I do go into details, but Princeton definitely has more than three non-engineering majors that would fall into the science category.

This is coming from someone who avoided the sciences and engineering departments as much as humanly possible, but I know for sure Princeton has a molecular biology department and an ecology and evolutionary biology department. They also have geosciences and astrophysics departments that exist outside of the engineering departments. I'll let someone who knows more than I do go into details, but Princeton definitely has more than three non-engineering majors that would fall into the science category.

Cool, and that makes sense. It seemed strange to me that they'd be able to have so few departments for all the sciences.